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Thursday, December 1, 2011

Hey Hey We're the Adventuring Party!

My wife is a Monkees fan. In fact, it might be fair to say she is THE Monkees fan east of Montreal. She had to give an eight minute speech on the band for a class and ended up going on for twenty before they cut her off. You know the game 'Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon'? Well she does a variation called 'Everything Goes Back to the Monkees' and it is a rare older movie where she doesn't suddenly exclaim, "He was in the Monkees!"

Which is just the very long way of saying that I've seen a lot of Monkees episodes. Last night a thought occured to me: this is what most roleplaying sessions would look like if they happened in "real life".

In the course of having their weekly adventures, the Monkees continually broke the fourth wall, made meta-jokes about being in a television show, got into trouble and got out of it through unusual means, even if it meant bending the plot like a Strech-Armstrong doll (or even consulting the script).

While they never found the Underground Lair of Bonky the Absolutely Mad and engaged a rust monster of owlbear in mortal combat, they often went off in search of treasures and face bad guys.

Most RPG players, at one time or another, have their characters make in-game jokes, run around like idiots when they've lost the thread, or forced the Gamemaster bend the plot like a slinky to get they players back on track.

The old 'Do Not Touch This Button, Button', works every time.

Encounter: Clearly Insane PersonThe party runs across a lone individual who they quickly realize, has completely lost their mind. The person is the lone survivor of a previous party; a prisoner who hs been alone for a few decades; or in the case of the Monkees, an actor from a previous series who was left behind when the show wrapped.This person has some information vital to the Party, however they are now so crazy that they can barely speak. Instead they can only string together nonsense gibberish or random words. However, the party member with the LOWEST Intelligence score somehow easily understands the gibberish. The Player of the PC is allowed to freely interpret the nonsent as they see fit, but the Clearly Insane Person can vehimently indicate the negative if the GM thinks the player has gone to far.

To convey the needed information, the GM can either have the Clearly Insane Person remember how speak after a bit of practise, or write down the info and pass it to the translate PC.

The Clearly Insane Person however, always asks for something in return for their help. While they do not want to leave their current location, they will demand something that is particularly silly.

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Your Friend and Future Leader

After leaving gaming, our Hero became a samurai-for-hire in the mean streets of Saskatoon. He then moved to Montreal where he battled the forces of the Khmer Rouge, the Legion of Supervillians and Mary Kay. During this time, be became closely involved with the Free Winona movement and was arrested for staging a guerrilla screening of 'How to Make an American Quilt.'

Escaping custody, he disappeared for a few years into the underground streetfighting scene utilizing his purple-nurple skills to deadly effect. When he resurfaced, she had taken the alias Kelly Elizabeth Finklestien, and appeared as an extra on both Miama Vice, ALF and Punky Brewster.

After fronting "Sled-Dog Afterbirth", a yoddeling-grunge band out of Yellowknife, he travelled to Newfoundland where he single-highhandedly wiped out the last of the cod stock. There are unconfirmed reports that he spent some time in northern Manitoba, possibly working for the clandestine Department Zed as the vigilante-by-night known as “The Stoat“.

Nowadays, he is semi-retired and living in Halifax where, when not desperately reading the rule-book the night before a game, he raises Venezuelan hairless llamas and is currently learning to play the thereminvox.